Fringe Factor

Fringe Factor: Phil Robertson, a Modern-Day Rosa Parks

This country needs 150 million more reality stars with the courage to stand up against persecution. Plus, the atheists are starting their Holocaust in Times Square.

The Duck Dynasty patriarch’s anti-gay comments really brought out the fringe this week. Plus, Obamacare is apparently worse than anything the Nazis, Soviets, or terrorists have ever done, and poor kids should do manual labor for food.

Phil Robertson: A Modern-Day Rosa Parks

Unfortunately, we can’t ignore the Duck Dynasty call heard ‘round the world, especially when it’s sparked so many Fringe-worthy responses. Fringe Factor favorite Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association praised the anti-gay comments, which got the A&E reality star suspended from his show. On his Christian radio broadcast saying, Fischer said “What we need is about 150 million Phil Robertsons out there.” Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wasted no time defending Robertson, a Louisianan, issuing a statement arguing that “the politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” and “It’s a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

Sarah Palin also took the opportunity to call Robertson’s suspension evidence that “Free speech is an endangered species.” But the winning response to the Duck Dynasty brouhaha came from Ian Bayne, an Illinois Republican congressional candidate who compared Robertson to Rosa Parks. Yes, Rosa Parks. Bayne’s exact words, in a fundraising email, were: “In December 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand against an unjust societal persecution of black people, and in December 2013, Robertson took a stand against persecution of Christians. What Parks did was courageous… What Robertson did was courageous too.”

Obamacare: Worse than Nazis, Soviets and Terrorists

North Carolina State Senator Bob Rucho thinks the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing that’s happened pretty much ever. Rucho tweeted this week that Obamacare and the pen of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who signed the 2012 ruling solidifying the constitutionality of the law, have “done more damage to the USA than the swords of the Nazis, Soviets & terrorists combined.” Rucho refused local media requests to clarify his sharp words, but responded to the backlash he received on Twitter with, “Those that tweeted, put your thinking caps back on: ‘The PEN is mightier than the SWORD.’ Edward Bulwar-Lytton, 1839. But surely you knew that.”

Atheist Ad Could Spark Christian Holocaust

Speaking of Nazis, New York State Sen. Andrew Lanza of Staten Island fears that an atheist group’s Times Square billboard arguing that nobody needs the “Christ” in Christmas, is the kind of “religious persecution” that led to the Holocaust. Granted, the billboard is intentionally infuriating. But Lanza is so offended that he’s calling for a boycott of Times Square and for American Atheists, the group that posted the billboard, to have its nonprofit status revoked. “We will not be silenced or smeared by a bigoted elected official, nor will we allow our members and other tens of millions of American atheists to be slandered by a representative of our own government,” said David Silverman, the group’s president in a statement affirming that the billboard won’t be going anywhere until after Christmas.

Poor Kids Should Sweep the Cafeteria for Their Lunch

Taking a page from fellow Georgian Newt Gingrich, who suggested poor children should work as school janitors, Peach State Rep. Jack Kingston wants to teach kids a lesson about money by making them do manual labor for their food. Kingston told a local Republican Party group that paying for low-income kids’ school lunches is getting too expensive and suggested that the children themselves “pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria…”

We learned this week that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is a supporter of 2014 Senate hopeful Greg Brannon. Brannon is of the belief that public education “does nothing but dehumanize students,” that states are not required to adhere to Supreme Court decisions, that Americans are “enslaved” by bipartisan compromises, and that the late Sen. Jesse Helms, who supported racial segregation up until his death in 2008, was a “modern hero.” He’s also a friend of the secessionist group, The League of the South.